Learn to identify and prevent top occupational fraud schemes, focusing on asset misappropriation, corruption, financial statement fraud, and anti-fraud controls.
Fraud impacts all individuals and organizations. Regardless of size, structure, geography, or demographics, every organization is subject to fraud. Many individuals refer to fraud red flags, which are signs that indicate the potential for fraud to occur. Red flags do not mean that fraud has occurred.
This course will focus on the top occupational fraud schemes identified in the 2024 ACFE Fraud Report to the Nations. Occupational fraud refers to fraud committed by an organization's employees. The ACFE fraud tree delineates the three major categories of fraud as follows:
There are many presentations on “top frauds.” Be cognizant of how the presenter is focusing the discussion. Top frauds could relate to various areas. Examples of top fraud schemes include financial statement fraud, revenue disclosures and presentations, cyber and internet fraud, asset misappropriation, and corruption.
In this course, we review information on the top fraud schemes by focusing on the three categories defined by the ACFE fraud tree. We also evaluate the most common schemes by industry and deterrent methods and internal controls to help mitigate fraud.
Note: Information within this course comes from readily available public domain documents and is utilized by the trainer as a supplement for relaying the course content.
Lynn Fountain has over 45 years of experience spanning public accounting, corporate accounting and consulting. 24 years of her experience has been working in the areas of internal and external auditing. She is a subject matter expert in multiple fields including internal audit, ethics, fraud evaluations, Sarbanes-Oxley, enterprise risk management, governance, financial management and compliance. Ms. Fountain has held two Chief Audit Executive positions for international companies. In 2011, as the Chief Audit Executive for an international construction/ engineering firm, she was involved in the active investigation of a joint venture fraud. The investigation included work with the FBI and ultimately led to indictment of the perpetrators and recovery of $13M. Ms. Fountain is currently engaged in her own training and consulting business and is a regular trainer for the AICPA. Ms. Fountain is the author of three separate technical books. “Raise the Red Flag – The Internal Auditors Guide to Fraud Evaluations” was published by the Institute of Internal Auditors Research Foundation. -“Leading The Internal Audit Function” and -“Ethics and The Internal Auditor Political Dilemma” were published by Taylor & Francis In addition Ms. Fountain was a contributing author to the certification program exam for the National Association of Accountants. She also has certificate programs on various on-line platforms. Ms. Fountain has performed as an adjunct instructor for the School of Business for Grantham University and developed the first internal audit curriculum for the School of Business at the University of Kansas. Ms. Fountain obtained her BSBA from Pittsburg State University and her MBA from Washburn University in Kansas. She has her CGMA, CRMA credentials and CPA certificate (non-active).
